Saturday morning I timed a regional cross country meet, the third year I have timed this particular event. This was the largest event to date with 33 teams and 857 kids signed up. Before the race some of the kids that were assigned to help out were given a task.
There were big envelopes made up for each team. Inside each packet was that team’s roster along with the chip numbers assigned to them. To make this process easier, I sorted the teams so each team had a contiguous block of numbers assigned to them. I thought this couldn’t get much easier, you look at the first name and last name on the teams list and the numbers they are assigned, you then simply pull out all of the chips in between those numbers and drop them in the envelope.
Well despite explaining this process pretty thoroughly, even though I don’t think it warranted a thorough explanation, it somehow got messed up. When I looked over at the table a few minutes later it was covered with chips strewn about. I walked over and asked what happened. The one girl said that someone was “confused” and messed up what I thought was a fool proof procedure.
I was pretty worried about the wrong chips getting into the wrong hands and the timing headaches it would cause. Luckily they eventually got it all sorted out.
The finish line for this race is in the school’s football stadium which is always kind of cool. The only thing that isn’t cool is the real turf that it is made out of has millions of tiny little rubber pellets which quickly fill your sneakers and adhere to anything placed on the ground when the field is damp with morning dew. The good thing about real turf is I had zero issues with kids tripping on the finish mats since it is short and uniform in height.
I had a bit of a scare during the girls varsity race which was the first of four. About half way into it the timing box started beeping continuously. I looked at the indicator leds and saw there was an issue with one of the two timing mats. I was really surprised because I was actually using two of the brand new timing mats I had received a a few weeks ago.
So I quickly cycled power on the timing box, hoping it was just some sort of weird glitch. No dice. I looked up at the clock and saw I was at about 12 or 13 minutes. I was considering if I wanted to try to quickly replace the mat. I imagined a nightmare scenario where a girl would be streaking towards the finish line I was still f’ing around with the mats so I decided to just let it go and rely on the one mat that was up and running.
Luckily it seemed to work out. After the first race I swapped in another mat and it worked fine, confirming that my brand new mat was indeed dead.
After that excitement to start the day the rest of my timing duties went down pretty smoothly. Despite the huge volume of kids I had relatively few problems. The biggest problem was the roughly dozen timing chips I did not get back that we have to now try to get back with threats of a bill of $20 per chip.
I didn’t get off site until after 11:30. I had to rush home and quickly post the results before heading right back out. I was supposed to go pick up Ali to go look at cars, specifically a Chevy Volt.
Ali has been concerned that the Camry was getting up there in both years and mileage (it crossed 100k miles a few months ago). The idea of getting smacked with unplanned repair bills wasn’t something she was real keen on.
I had been following the Volt for a long time. It is a techolover’s dream car. It takes what I think is an ideal approach to green travel, upping what the Camry does to an impressive degree. Although the Camry is also a gas/electric hybrid, it utilizes both pretty equally to squeeze out it’s mileage numbers of 35/40 mpg, quite good for a sedan. The Camry actually can be driven short distances in pure electric mode at speeds of up to 42 mph which we always thought was kind of cool.
Well the Volt can go around 40 miles of normal driving using nothing but battery power which is awesome. If you are going on a long trip there is a gas engine that can be utilized as well so you don’t have to worry about being stranded if the juice runs out like you would if you had something like a Nissan Leaf. The Volt potentially can avoid all use of gas for long periods of time if your daily driving requirements are not huge but is flexible enough to be used for long road trips as well.
Toyota actually makes a plug in Prius now but it only can go a maximum of 6 miles on pure electric mode which seems kind of silly.
I was the one that pitched the idea of a Volt to Ali since I saw they were offering huge incentives on the car since sales have been far less than hoped for. She asked that I accompany her to the dealership since I worked as a slimy car salesman for 16 months in my early 20’s.
I called ahead to the local Chevy dealer to verify they had a Volt to test drive. The sales guy executed sales 101, telling me he wasn’t sure if they had one (he knew they did), but he would check and call me back if I gave him my number. Now, innocently he has obtained a contact number where he can hound me incessantly if he chooses to. After probably reading a magazine for a few minutes, he called me back with the good news, they had one on the lot we could drive.
As we pulled into the dealership we were greeted by Jason, a friendly younger guy. When I was looking at Camaros I had stopped in there and the place seemed to be populated with nothing but old stereotypical car sales guys. I was glad we didn’t get one of them.
Jason grabbed the keys to the car and handed them to Ali. I told her there was no reason for me to drive it even though I certainly would have liked to. It is a geek’s dream. Sitting behind the wheel reminds me of sitting in the one of those wrap around cabinet video games, there are just bells and whistles everywhere.
The test drive went fine, you couldn’t really tell you weren’t consuming any gasoline although the lack of typical engine noise was a good clue. Ali liked the car. There was one issue though, Ali didn’t want the options on this particular Volt. Most Volts are equipped with leather seats, something Ali would never go for. This Volt also had upgraded chrome wheels and a couple other things Ali didn’t care about.
The sales guy said he would go inside to do a search of other dealers inventory for something that was what Ali was interested in. While he did that Ali got to look over more of the interior of the car in detail. Luckily Ali approved of the cup holders, one of the most important things when it comes to buying a vehicle.
So we went inside and Jason showed us what he found. The two cars that had the exact options Ali wanted were in two colors Ali did not want, red and blue. Ali much prefers neutral colors like tan or the silver of the car she drove. There was a silver Volt that had what Ali wanted minus the navigation system.
At first this seemed like a big negative to Ali but when Jason said the car comes with 3 years of free Onstar service which included turn by turn directions (minus a map on the screen) it seemed like less of a negative. I told Ali she uses the NAV in the Camry very rarely and if she needed a map it already will reside on her Iphone. Jason said he also expects there will be a 3rd party smart phone app, similar to what is out for the Camaro that allows her phone to basically replace an in car system, displaying Iphone map data on the car’s AV screen.
Ok, so now we were landed on a vehicle that Ali would like. Jason asked if we could get numbers that we were happy with if Ali would buy the car. She said yes, although it would be a big stretch. When Jason was running back and forth checking on things, he had left the print outs of the prospective vehicle on the desk. I took a look at it and had to laugh a bit when I saw the print out included the dealer invoice. I already knew approximately what the invoice was but I don’t think he intended for me to have it quite so accessible.
Ok so now they had to take a look at the Camry to see what it’s worth. The Camry is still in great shape, it’s biggest wart is the high mileage. I had run wholesale numbers on it’s worth prior to coming to the dealership so I had realistic expectations. Well Jason’s initial number did not come close to meeting those expectations. They were obviously trying to “steal” the trade initially, another very common tactic. They never expect a person to accept the first offer but if they are dumb enough to do so they make a killing on the trade so they always start very low.
I told Jason that number was way low based on the numbers I saw. Of course he disagreed with my numbers and asked if he could bump the trade a grand if we could do a deal. I told him that I had already been in contact with another dealership in Estero that was very interested in selling us a car. I also said we were considering taking a look at a new Prius.
Basically, the most important thing you can do in a car sales negotiation is establish that you are not married to buying a car and are willing to walk away. So, after some more staged back and forth talk about the numbers we arrived at a trade number $2500 above what we were initially offered. It was higher than the black book values I found. I backed this up by quickly checking retail prices of high mileage Camry Hybrids on AutoTrader which were not good. It was a decent trade offer.
What made up for the median trade offer were the amazing incentives they are offering on the Volt. 2013’s have a $2000 rebate AND 60 month zero percent financing, wow. If that was not enough to knock your socks off, come tax time, Ali will be receiving an ADDITIONAL $7500 back from Uncle Sam for the Volt purchase. So basically you are getting a $10k spiff and free financing, it is pretty crazy.
So it was easy to figure payment numbers no interest to worry about. The numbers still came in a bit high so Ali and I did some quick on the spot discussions related to divorce financial issues where we would utilize the majority of the remaining joint funds to help her knock down her monthly payment. I agreed to do so in good faith, trusting that it will be accounted for cleanly when the time arrives to do so. Even now, I was excited to help Ali to get into cool, new wheels.
So after confirming with me that I thought it was a good deal, Ali shook Jason’s hand and became the proud owner of a new Volt. She should be picking it up tomorrow once it arrives from the dealership where it is currently housed. Ali is hoping to employ my tech savy to get the Volt dialed in once she takes possession.
I walked away from the deal with the odd feeling of being jealous of both Ali’s living arrangements and future transportation accommodations. She will probably save $100 + a month in gas at the current prices and can use the $7500 government spiff to fund her car payment budget column for quite a long time if she needs to.
When she posted about her Volt purchase on Facebook, her brother, whom has been on an anti-Obama jihad for some time now, immediately jumped all over the Volt. He accurately pointed out that the Volt is HEAVILY government subsidized. Not only will Ali get that huge spiff for buying a Volt, GM gets a spiff for making it, a big one. He finds this egregious.
I don’t look at it in quite the same way. I think the world needs to be pushed, pulled and dragged into a life where fossil fuels become a consistently smaller piece of the energy pie. I think the Volt is the perfect compromise of both worlds. Now the problem is, this tech can not yet be made available to the public at a price point where it will be widely adopted. These government incentives are an effort to do this. I think it is a big picture idea that is going to take time. Unfortunately we live in a very short term, me first, fck you world where so many people care about themselves and themselves alone.
The Volt is also an effort to kick start domestic production of the massive battery packs that are used to power the car. The last two decades have seen these type of technologies consistently farmed out overseas where they can be built cheaper. I love that GM is relying on an American company to make these battery packs. Ali’s brother was more concerned about the recent story that the battery plant has been nearly idle because of the slow Volt sales. Again, big picture versus little picture.
The hope is that with the government footing a large portion of the Volt bill, this car, and others like it will become more and more mainstream. The more mainstream they become, the less expensive they become as the technology is more widely adopted. It’s a seed that was planted. The government is watering it daily right now until it grows large enough to be self sustaining. Will the plan ultimately be successful? I certainly hope so but even if it would ultimately fail, I think it is a fight worth fighting.
I am a real fan of the greater good concept. It is in everyone’s best interest to get away from fossil fuels both for economic and environmental reasons. (unless you are a fan of Exxon) If you don’t agree with that basic premise and that in order to do so is going to take a massive financial effort to drag us away from the slimy tentacles of big oil, I would suggest you are sadly mistaken.
Saturday night I headed downtown to meet up at a post race party for an 80 mile relay run that was held during the day. I had a good time getting relatively drunk and hanging out with good people. I got home just before midnight.
I had plans to run Sunday. When I woke up right before 8am I almost immediately dismissed them, I felt shitty. Immediately the internal discussions start up, the taskmaster reminding me that if I blow off the exercise I will be annoyed with myself.
After I had my Pop Tart breakfast I felt a little more human so I started leaning back towards grabbing my sneakers. My mind was made up when I saw it was a very comfortable 66 degrees outside, a temp I have not had the pleasure of running in for probably 7 or 8 months.
I drove down to the water park and decided to do the big 10K Oakes loop. The first half mile or so I felt pretty shitty, questioning if I wanted to continue running for almost an hour straight. Eventually things settled down and felt better. I completed the 10K with no stops for water or a breather in what felt like a decent pace, I didn’t even bother to bring my GPS. Mentally, I felt better for making myself get out there and do the work, even when I really didn’t feel up to it.
I picked up the dogs on the way back home since Ali was going to work and I was going to be home doing chores. Since the Eagles were on bye this week I had all day to buzz around. The lion share of my time was consumed by mowing, I spent well over four hours on the tractor since I mowed the back yard as well.
The weekend was over in a blink of an eye.
I doubled the time of this upcoming weekend thanks to the use of some of my vacation days. By this time next Monday rolls around I hope to have the bedroom painted and the Pioneer stereo installed in the Tacoma.
Wow the pictures of the damage from Sandy are pretty horrific, especially the Atlantic City and NYC images.
